Thread by @jason_kint

throwback time at Supreme Court today. Remember when Facebook looked away while data was harvested and sold to Cambridge Analytica (and other firms) ahead of 2016 election then covered it up? Topic finally hit SCOTUS - 10am (Kavanaugh not recusing would be outrageous). 1/3

basically facebook is trying to argue why it didn't need to disclose the "breach" despite never confirming it (2015-2018 which included elections) ahead of scandal going global in 2018. They've since somewhat successfully rewritten history on what happened thru soft press. 2/3

here is a link to oral arguments (supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments…) and a thread into more info. Justice Kavanaugh is best buds with a Facebook exec who was at center of scandal and cover-up. One hour of arguments (US Solicitor General, too). 3/3 x.com/jason_kint/sta…

4/3 also this thread as a reminder... a distraction from the other developments for your 10a-11a window into the world.

https://x.com/jason_kint/status/1849924689939902513

A reminder why this case matters. It involves failure to disclose the scandal. Zuckerberg testified to AOC (and Senate) about his awareness, dodged Parliaments, and paid FTC and SEC $5B+ to make go away. Board members sold stock. This case risks opening it all back up.

Justice Kavanaugh already asking questions (again, outrageous) and Justice Sotomayor (getting into the details) noting Facebook had failed to put in protections and failed to make sure the data was deleted.

Facebook now arguing again that the scandal was already in the public domain. This is a reference to a 2015 Guardian news report that wasn't widely read at the time and Facebook never confirmed had happened but said it would investigate.

If I was asking questions, I would ask Facebook if they think it's appropriate its directors (Thiel, Zuckerberg, Sandberg and Andreessen) were able to sell Facebook stock with knowledge the risk had happened while Facebook described it as a hypothetical in its SEC statement.

Justice Sotomayor clearly knows this case. the context does matter, Facebook's data was continuing to be wrongly used by an incredibly sensitive context and firm (2016 POTUS election), its execs were denying facts to press, under FTC consent decree but not disclosing.